Conventionally, particularly in the field of clinical examinations, it is known to prepare a sample by mixing a specimen such as human blood or urine with a necessary reagent and to carry out an automatic measurement of a specific component from the specimen quantitatively by measuring the absorbance etc. of this sample.
Among such conventional measuring equipment, there are a special-purpose apparatus whose measurement object is limited to a specific substance and a general-purpose apparatus that is capable of measuring a wide range of substances. In the case of the special-purpose apparatus, a special-purpose cartridge container injected separately in advance with liquid reagents needed for measurement of items of a measurement object is already prepared. In this configuration, an operator only needs to fill a specimen into the special-purpose cartridge container and set this container in the equipment, and all the operations from mixing the reagents with the specimen to the measurement are carried out automatically inside one special-purpose cartridge container.
In the case of the general-purpose apparatus, on the other hand, it is necessary to use various kinds of reagents compared to the special-purpose apparatus. Therefore, it is difficult to automate all the operations, and the measurement operation procedures corresponding to the measurement object need to be determined by the operator. Furthermore, due to the fact that the larger. In addition, every time the measurement object is changed, it is necessary to replace reagents or to clean the apparatus, so that the loss of reagent is great, and also the consumables such as wash water are consumed in a large amount. Furthermore, every time the measurement object is changed, it is highly possible that corrections need to be made before measurements.
In other words, the special-purpose apparatus is of specific limited application, so that the following advantages are available: (1) it is generally smaller than the general-purpose apparatus; (2) it is possible to automate the operations almost completely; (3) it is not necessary to make corrections frequently before measurements; and (4) reagents are not changed frequently so that the amount of consumption for wash water etc. is less.
However, as a matter of course, the special-purpose apparatus can only carry out the measurement of a specific measurement object. Therefore, when a substance that cannot be measured by the special-purpose apparatus needs to be measured, there is no other way but to use the general-purpose apparatus in spite of the disadvantages described above.